Women’s Advocacy Group Urges Spotify to Pull Other Abusive Artists From Playlists

On Thursday (May 10), Spotify announced it would be pulling all R. Kelly and XXXTentacion music from its curated playlists and discovery algorithms due to multiple sexual and domestic abuse allegations. Now, the women's advocacy group Ultraviolet is urging the streaming platform to extend its new hate content and hateful conduct policy to the following artists:

"Thank you for taking the important first step of removing infamous abusers R. Kelly and XXXTentacion from your official playlists. Your action demonstrates that Spotify is following the lead of Black women who demanded that these two men, who have sexually and physically abused women for years, not be promoted and celebrated."

She then discusses how Spotify can do better. "Yet as you know, these two men are not the only abusers on your platform. We implore you to take a deeper look at the artists you promote," she writes. "Every time a famous individual continues to be glorified despite allegations of abuse, we wrongly perpetuate silence by showing survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence that there will be no consequences for abuse. That has a cultural effect far beyond one individual artist."

When Spotify announced the new policy, they explained their decision to Billboard.

"We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly," Spotify said. "His music will still be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it. We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, but we want our editorial decisions -- what we choose to program -- to reflect our values. When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator."